B-SPICE: The Beam-Spacecraft Plasma Interaction and Charging Experiment

The recent development of relativistic electron guns compact enough for space opens a host of exciting new opportunities. For example, an electron beam fired from the Earth's magnetosphere could be used to trace magnetic field lines in real-time and thus provide closure to long-standing, fundamental questions in magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling. However, electron beam emission in the low-density magnetosphere requires the development of a spacecraft-charging mitigation scheme to ensure safe operation. Currently the most promising spacecraft-charging mitigation scheme is based on the emission of a plasma contactor (high-density plasma) during electron beam operation. Recent work has shown that the contactor can operate in a new regime by emitting substantial ion currents off the plasma contactor surface, thereby opening a new path forward for magnetospheric electron beam experiments.

B-SPICE is a proposed rocket experiment dedicated to the physics of spacecraft charging mitigation by a plasma contactor and the newly identified ion emission regime. Successful completion of this experiment will raise the technological readiness level of the described spacecraft-charging mitigation scheme for application to active experiments in the low-density magnetosphere. Mission details including a payload description, concept of operations, and standard experimental sequence will be discussed. The standard experimental sequence includes changing parameters like the contactor plasma generation and expansion time to understand how the system may scale for magnetospheric experiments. Earth-based simulations and experiments supporting B-SPICE are also summarized.